January 04, 2007

Happy New Year!

I hope you all had a great time ringing in the new year. So far mine is off to a good start. I've played only a few games, but I've done well overall so far. I played in a $2 MTT and made it pretty deep, only to have someone call my all in with their underpair when there were two overcards on the board, and I had raised preflop. I had ten outs, but didn't hit.

I have also played a couple of SNGs. In the first one, I ended up placing 3rd. I would have finished higher, but I got sucked out on when I pushed in the final three. Of course, I sucked out in order to get to that spot in the first place, so I can't really say anything. Suffice it to say, I have found a hole in my game.

I'm not sure how much of a hole it really is though. I guess if something is -EV, it's hole so I need to address it. My problem is that I am making plays that are too advanced for the buy-in level that I am currently playing at, and people who don't know any better are calling me down with huge ranges of hands. I am going to need to keep reminding myself that most of these people will not be capable of folding if they have even remotely connected with the board and save the advanced plays for when I've built the bankroll up enough to play at higher buy-ins.

The second SNG I played in, I won outright. In this game, most everything went right for me, and I think I only got lucky one time. My reads were on, and my plays were correct. I was sucked out on a couple of times in the end game, but I was able to rebuild my stack with well-timed aggression. If I can keep up this level of play, then I should be able to build my bankroll no problem. The win in this SNG has increased my bankroll by 33%.

Hopefully I can continue to get a decent ROI% from these SNGs and slowly move up the buy-in ladder. Once I have a sufficient enough bankroll, I will begin to move over to some cash games (when I have enough to play at the $25 level). I hope everyone else is off to a good start this new year. See you on the felt.